Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [203]
Truzenzuzex eyed him quizzically. “Help? You were alone when we sent you out there. You were alone when we brought you back. Did someone or something come to you while you were locked inside the sphere?”
“Something like that,” Flinx told him. “Old acquaintances, of a kind. Of several kinds, actually. It was all a dreaming, of course.” He tapped his forehead with the middle and forefinger of his left hand. “All brought to fruition here. How it was realized I could not begin to tell you. That's how my life has been, Tru. Driven and governed and impelled forward by things I cannot begin to explain.”
Tse-Mallory grunted softly. “While Flinx's testimony is encouraging, we still need to validate the effectiveness of his efforts through other sources. We can't do that until we return to a developed world where we can make use of advanced astronomical facilities.” Reaching behind him, Tse-Mallory slipped his young friend's jumpsuit off a hanger and passed the bundle of fabric to its owner. “Until then, we will assume at least a modicum of success.” He eyed his companions. “To do otherwise would be to capitulate to wretchedness and despair.” A broad smile creased his deeply lined face as he turned back to Flinx.
“Now get dressed. Tru and I are anxious to hear in detail everything that happened to you while you were out of contact. Or at the very least, everything that you think happened to you.”
“And I will make it my responsibility to check on our guests.” Sylzenzuzex started out of the dispensary. “They will be very unhappy to learn that we believe that Flinx has, with the aid of the Xunca apparatus, eliminated the rationale for the continued existence of their disagreeable Order.”
When the others had departed, Clarity once again moved close to Flinx, looking on as he slowly continued dressing. Utterly fatigued, Pip remained sprawled on the now empty table. Spreading his wings, an energetic Scrap glided down to join her.
“Is there anything, Flinx, I can get you? Anything I can do for you?”
Sealing the front of the jumpsuit, he smiled tenderly down at her. What this woman had been through because of him no human being ought to have had to endure, he thought. That she had done so, had done all of it, of her own free will and out of love for him did not to any degree mitigate the sacrifices she had made on his behalf.
It was a good thing he kept such musings to himself, because had he voiced them aloud she would have told him he was being seriously silly.
Putting her arms around him, she placed her head against his chest and squeezed tight. He hugged her gently and rested his head lightly on hers.
“You may have saved civilization,” she murmured. “Time and time again you've risked your life to preserve it, and no one except those on board this ship will ever know what you've done.” Leaning back slightly, she looked up to meet his gaze. “You're fated to be the Commonwealth's illustrious but anonymous savior, Philip Lynx.”
He nodded slowly, thinking how utterly, supremely, incomparably beautiful she was.
“Clarity, that suits me just fine.”
The physicians and the secure medical shell at the advanced long-term care-and-repair facility on Earth to whose guardianship they commended Mahnahmi accepted the unique case without too many questions. Preliminary diagnostics hinted at severe long-term paralysis of selected neural connections. There was a significant chance, Flinx and his companions were told, that even if repairs could be effected to the damaged areas, full recovery of memory and other functions was unlikely. The patient would live—after a fashion, and with her capacity for higher cognition much reduced.
Without suffering so much as a twinge of irony, Flinx made arrangements to pay for her extended treatment and care.
The downcast surviving members of the Order of Null were repatriated to their respective homeworlds and set free to spread the word that the whole foundation